Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench • Hacker News Board

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#211

Post by vmception » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #186

vmception wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are suddenly in front of a judge that decides your life’s fate wouldn’t you want to pull up historical data that tracks and publishes the judges decisions, the feedback from others who have been in your place, and be able to contribute after your experience? A good lawyer has those things already. Having one of those is part of the privilege. Starry eyed pro bono idealists will never realize this. They've pu…

How many people can afford a “good lawyer”?

compare yourself to yourself, not others

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#212

Post by jrumbut » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

tomerv wrote: post #206

candiodari wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best answer for that question is in 99% of cases (light offenders) also in prison (not locked up. With the mother still taking them to school, ideally the same school). There's research that this is both the best for the child and a very effective way to reduce recidivism. And let's not forget that there really aren't that many effective ways to reduce recidivism, so this ought to be worth a lot to society. Gener…

I think we all agree that in this case the mother - who is a light offender - should not have gotten such a harsh sentence. Your vision of the mother being with the child effectively means that the mother gets a lighter sentence. But sadly that's not the case here... so you're either saying we should abolish hard sentences to light offenders (or maybe just those with children?), or you're not really answering the que…

I think he's talking about systems where the child actually lives in the same facility as the parent.

Such programs exist, in a limited way: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/06/663516573/programs-help-incar...

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#213

Post by missedthecue » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #153

wang_li wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would turn into what every review system on the web is: a place to get petty revenge. Make people use their real identity and have criminal liability for lies of commission and omission, then you might have something. But probably just one more mechanism for idiots to go to jail.

You could do drop down answers to rate officials instead of free form text. Don’t know how it would work for verifying a real identity. Maybe require Moderation and only licensed lawyers can approve a new user?

A cop does normal things: no one leaves a review

A cop leaves a ticket that a driver thinks is unfair: 1 star review

Every cop would have a one star rating, which basically tells us nothing except that some people are salty, justifiably or unjustifiably. Impossible to know for certain.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#214

Post by tekknik » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 12:38 AM UTC

jogjayr wrote: post #175

bzb3 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly can we do about someone who clearly doesn't give a fuck about the law? What message does it send if you let someone pile up traffic tickets with no consequence for himself?

Garnish their wages? Seize their assets? That's what we do for other forms of debt, it's not that hard of a question, honestly.

Or we just force judges to follow the laws? How does your solution help someone who’s not paying because they can’t afford it? Punishments are supposed to be proportional to the crime and not overly harsh. A reasonable judge knows this, a power hungry one, well....

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#215

Post by tekknik » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 12:43 AM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #157

wahern wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the…

>But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the rich and powerful because that's the very definition of power--capable of bending the system to your advantage. Base the fine on income. Say, a traffic ticket is 0.1% of your income, while running a red light is 1% an…

This is how fines are supposed to be imposed already. It’s up to the judge to decide what’s appropriate. The problem is when you get a judge that likes to impose their flavor of the law.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#216

Post by tekknik » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

elbigbad wrote: post #141

SkyBelow wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decides not to pay and keep speeding? Not that they can't, but they don't. Eventually you lose your licenses. You continue to speed, getting more tickets, and now also getting tickets for driving without a license. You continue to refuse to pay the fines and conti…

> Then you effectively are creating a maximum punishment that could easily be ignored by some of the population. No, just moving what the maximum punishment is from jail time to a boot on their tire. Conversely, who says jail time is enough? Why not make the maximum even worse than jail? At some point you have to have a max, just advocating that the max is reduced. > Take speeding tickets. What if a person just decid…

If the intent is to help the poor then why are we talking about garnishing wages and taking property. If we go this route we’ll shortly be right back here talking about how wage garnishment is inhumane.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#217

Post by Shared404 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

wang_li wrote: post #150

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Jail time should only apply to people who are actively a threat. I know it's not popular, but I am in favor of some form of corporal punishment over jail time, and even over fines. Fines are meaningless to the wealthy, and devastating to the poor, but getting flogged feels the same to everyone.

A poor driver is an active threat. Fines aren’t devastating to the poor. They don’t pay them, thus this woman.

Alternately,

Case A) A poor person pays their fine, and is devastated by the loss of money.

Case B) A poor person can't pay the fine and gets sentenced to prison or gets something repoed, and is devastated by either the criminal record or loss of property.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#218

Post by ZeikJT » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #64

There is some horrible conduct detailed on here, but also not so horrible conduct: > They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney; a New York judge who berated domestic violence victims; and a Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test before…

I think people are leaning further and further into retribution instead of rehabilitation. People make mistakes and we need to realize that unless the mistake is really heinous then we don't need to absolutely destroy their entire lives. We just need them to learn from the mistake, possibly pay a cost (therapy, fines, temporary unpaid leave, etc), and then rejoin society as social and economic contributors.

I'd rather not pass individual judgement on these cases presented but it seems to me that some of these are more damning than others.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#219

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 12:30 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #190

SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that disbarment is not permanent in a majority of states.

Disbarment is quite literally the permanent revocation of your license to practice law in a jurisdiction. In most jurisdictions, if you have been disbarred, you can never practice law there again unless you disbarment is overturned, which generally requires a court order following a lengthy appeals process. As a practical matter, the number of lawyers who get reinstated each year numbers in the single digits or low d…

Nonsense. You even contradicted yourself, first writing that disbarment is "quite literally the permanent revocation of your license" after which you start to describe how you think reinstatement works.

"Permanent" and "disbarment" don't go together the way most people assume they do. When the public reads that Attorney Bob got caught doing Bad Things and was disbarred, they assume that down the road if they hire an attorney (or receive PD services), the Bad Guy is not in the running.

A 2007 paper titled "Should Permanent Disbarment be Permanent?" published in The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics provides a good overview of just how impermanent 'permanent disbarment' is.

Its author found that "Five states mandate that all disbarments be treated as permanent. Eight states allow for disbarments to be permanent in some situations. In these states, when disbarment is not permanent, readmittance can either be applied for in seven years, five years, or at any time, depending on the jurisdiction. . . . The remaining 35 states and DC have no procedure for permanent disbarment." Of course, there's also the matter that not all states have 'disbarment in any other jurisdiction' as a disqualifier. Disbarred? Maybe it's time for a move?

Joseph O'Malley is best known for his 2013 "indefinite disbarment" after the now-former prosecutor was charged with nine violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct arising from his improper influencing of a judge, and his August 2011 convictions in an Ohio federal court for misprision of a felony and making a materially false statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the federal government. O'Malley's 2013 disbarment generated a lot of press. Know what no one reported anywhere? That he was reinstated in 2016. He was recently appointed as public defender for a cop who was arrested for OVI. (Adjudicated not guilty on that charge.)

As a practical matter, the number of reinstated lawyers each year is not even remotely close to as low as you claim. I just now looked at the data for a handful of states and I'm already way over your upper end. It's more like "In any given state, annual figures are in the single to low double digits" — with a few much larger outliers.